In 2017, 86% of marketers relied on influencer marketing campaigns at some point during the year.

And 39% of marketers say they have increased their influencer marketing budgets for 2018.

All of this is promising news if you’re interested in making a living on social media as an influencer. Even if you don’t have lots of followers right now, this guide will show you what you need to do to make yourself more appealing to marketers and brands.

I know, this can be tricky, especially for those of you who have tens of thousands of followers. But the key is getting into a habit of making time to respond.

At the very least, like their comment if you can’t respond to it.

Remember, we’re treating this as your job. If you want to make a living on social media, you need to dedicate a certain amount of time each day toward making yourself a more valuable influencer.

If it were easy, everyone would be doing it.

Engaging with your followers will help them feel a personal connection with you. When you recommend a brand to them, they will be more likely to act on your recommendation, making your marketing campaigns more successful.

4. Give away free stuff

Everyone wants to get something free.

To increase engagement with your followers, hosting a giveaway is one of your top options.

Once you start negotiating with brands and deciding what kind of content you should be posting, you can suggest a giveaway.

Ultimately, the decision is theirs. They will be the ones paying you for sponsored content.

But you don’t have to commit to anything you’re uncomfortable with. If you think the content they want you to post doesn’t add value to your followers, you can respectfully turn down the offer.

After all, you don’t want to lose credibility by posting everything and anything someone presents to you.

But that doesn’t mean you should go overboard. Using more than eight hashtags on one single post can seem spammy.

Use a variety of hashtags.

Some should be broad and intended to reach the highest number of people. For example, #tbt or “throwback Thursday” is a popular hashtag used on social media.

So your post would be exposed to the masses.

However, you don’t want to get lost in the shuffle.

Create some unique and more specific hashtags appropriate for each campaign. If you look at the giveaway example again, you’ll see that Jen used #JenSelterGIVEAWAY in per post to stand out.

6. Partner with a mobile app

All too often I see social influencers partner with the same types of brands. They’re promoting clothing, fitness apparel, accessories, and food.

While there is nothing wrong with this strategy, it may not be sustainable for long-term growth.

Those brands will end up using other influencers in the future once they feel they’ve gotten the most out of you and if your cost per post rate gets too high.

Think outside the box and try to partner with unique brands, such as mobile applications.

Here’s a great example of this strategy used by social influencer Eric Rubens:

Eric has more than 380k followers on Instagram.

If you look at his bio, he promotes a few different things related to his personal brand image. You can see his YouTube name and link to his website.

But look at what I highlighted. It’s his partnership with Explorest, a new mobile application.

The idea behind this app is very unique.

It shows users exact directions to places where they can take cool photographs.

This idea also fits within Eric’s personal image. If you look through his profile, he takes amazing photographs of places all over the world. So his followers are obviously interested in this type of content.

That’s why he was able to successfully partner with a mobile app such as Explorest.

7. Find your niche

It’s tempting for new influencers to take jobs from any brand that offers them money. But you need to understand how these posts can impact your future.

You don’t want to partner with any brand that goes against your core values and beliefs.

Furthermore, you need to analyze how this content will affect your followers and how you’re perceived by other brands moving forward.

Let’s look at an example to show you what I’m talking about. Here is James Tollefson’s Instagram biography:

James has just over 23k followers, which is a great number for micro influencers.

While his biography doesn’t promote anything specifically, like in the previous example, it tells you more about his life and who he is.

He’s a software engineer, living in San Diego, who is a fitness enthusiast.

Now, just saying you’re a fitness enthusiast and being a fitness enthusiast are two different things. Let’s take a look at his pictures to see if they fit the description:

As you can see, the content definitely fits the biography.

James shares content related to his fitness journey, and he promotes products that fit that niche.

If you join a community that connects brands and influencers, you want to make sure your content fits your speciality.

Don’t say you’re a foodie in your biography and then never share content related to food or work with brands in that industry. It doesn’t make sense, and it won’t make you any money.

8. Know your worth

According to research, 80% of influencers say sponsored content is their primary source of income.

This ranked higher than advertisements and affiliate links. Only 33% of influencers actually sign a contract with sponsors.

You’ve got to make sure you protect yourself and get paid for your work.

Don’t just post content for brands who offer to send you free products. That’s not enough if you’re trying to make a living.